Shambling Towards Hiroshima

Is this the world's longest suicide note, or just a means of filling time for Syms Thorley, an award-winning B-movie actor and writer who basks in the adulation of monster film fans around the world? Whichever, Shambling Towards Hiroshima is a smart and wry portrayal of a 1940s Hollywood that never quite existed. Recruited by the FBI for his ability to wear a monster suit, Thorley finds himself playing a key role in a plot to win the second world war. Struggling with the political realities of his involvement, Thorley applies his art to the war effort and a neck-and-neck race with the Manhattan project. If he can portray a fearsome giant lizard convincingly then the enemy will, so the project's developers believe, surrender unconditionally, saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Thorley's memoir is both funny and touching, and ends as an impassioned plea for global sanity. Few authors could successfully combine politics, humour and the line "We can thank our lucky stars that Hitler never got the lizard", but Morrow pulls it off with aplomb.